The Imposter Bride is a jewel of a book. With a true storyteller’s craft, Richler spins her tale and her characters from the wreckage that was the inheritance of World War II, each life carrying a secret burden of loss. At the center of this story is a bride who comes to Canada with a stolen identity. The shockwaves that ripple out from her sudden disappearance shape—and bind—the lives of all those she touched. These are characters that will stay with you long after you read the last word of the book. They are characters that show us that even out of the greatest tragedy, it is possible to shape hope and love.

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Product Description

Review

"Nancy Richler's new novel, The Imposter Bride, creates a world that places front and centre questions of identity and the kaleidoscope of facts that comprise a human being. The award-winning Richler writes solid, evocative, well-paced prose." - Montreal Review of Books

About the Author

NANCY RICHLER’s short fiction has been published in various American and Canadian literary journals, including Room of One’s Own, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Another Chicago Magazine and The Journey Prize Anthology. Her first novel, Throwaway Angels, was published in 1996 and was shortlisted for the 1997 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Crime Novel. Her second novel, Your Mouth Is Lovely, won the 2003 Canadian Jewish Book Award for fiction and Italy’s 2004 Adei-Wizo Prize. It has been translated into seven languages. Born in Montreal, Nancy Richler lived for many years in Vancouver but has recently returned to Montreal.

Most helpful customer reviews

This is the engrossing and highly readable story of "Lily Azerov" who has fled Eastern Europe after the turmoil and horror of the Second World War. In Palestine, she makes arrangements to marry a Canadian Jew, Sol Kramer. Sol, however, detects something not quite right beneath Lily's calm exterior. He decides not to marry her, but his brother Nathan does. However, all does not proceed smoothly: some of the actual Lily's Canadian relatives show up at the wedding and realize that this woman is impersonating their cousin. The imposter bride appears to have assumed Lily's identity in an attempt to escape the trauma and horror of her war experience. Not long after, the young wife, apparently fearing exposure by the true Lily's cousin, Ida, flees Montreal, her marriage, and her three-month old child, not knowing that Ida has her own painful past and no intention of calling this damaged young woman on her assumed identity.

The book largely focuses on the growing determination of Lily's daughter Ruth, who has grown up motherless, to find her mother and uncover the secret of her past. All she has to go on are the beautiful rocks her mother has sent her at irregular intervals over the years since Ruth was six, an uncut diamond, and Lily Azerov's journal, which was appropriated by the "imposter bride" somewhere along the way.

Author Richler has woven a richly rewarding novel of character,family, secrets, and history. In the Imposter Bride, she explores the deeply and uniquely human need to discover where we come from. Highly recommended.

Nancy Richler is a writer based in Montreal, and The Imposter Bride is the story of a young woman, Lily Azerov, who flees to Montreal from a devastated postwar Europe. Canada is not yet accepting Jewish refugees, so Lily immigrates on the pretext that she is engaged to be married to a Canadian. Sol has agreed to marry her, sight unseen, for a fee. However:

"When he saw the bride, he recoiled. Damaged goods. That's what he saw. A broken life, a frightened woman, a marriage that would bind him - however briefly - to grief. Let someone else marry her, he decided on the spot. He would never deny the widows and the orphans of the world. But neither, it turned out, did he want to have to marry them."

Lily is not what he had expected, so he leaves her high and dry. Fortunately his brother Nathan Kramer decides to marry her on the spot. But, it turns out that:

"Lily Azerov Kramer. She was not who she said she was.

No one really is, I suppose, but Lily's deception was more literal than most. Her name before... she'd left it there, in that beaten village where the first Lily had died, freeing, among other things, an identity card to replace the one she'd discarded, an identity that could propel a future if someone would just step into it.

Someone would, of course. The village was in Poland, 1944. Nothing went unused."

Lily has a child with Nathan, but with no explanation, suddenly disappears.

As she ages, Ruth, their daughter, is driven to understand the truth about her mother, about where she went, and where she came from.

Nancy Richler's new book is well-written and full of interesting events and details. I had tears in my eyes when I finished reading it. I found the characters well defined and yet quite familiar. The plot evoked my sympathies and I could not put it down. The historical setting made it even more meaningful, for me,at least.I am going to read it again because I enjoyed it so much. Definitely recommended for all readers.

This novel examines such an interesting idea: a woman assumes another person's identity in order to avoid persecution, and finds without her own name she is unable to be anybody at all. Like Richler's other novels, you just can't put this book down. Every character is so well-drawn, every situation is so rich with ambiguity, and the questions it asks are so important. Highly recommended.

Like a previous reviewer, I had tears in my eyes when I finished this novel. The relationships created by the author are so descriptive and haunting at the same time. An interesting viewpoint of a W.W.II tragedy. I highly recommend this novel

It is after the Second World War in Poland when a damaged young woman assumes the identity of a dead girl she sees lying on the street. The name of the dead girl is Lily Azerov. The woman finds an identity card, a notebook filled with dreams and other scribblings written in Yiddish, a pair of woolen socks and a single frosted stone, which she knew to be a diamond. She puts the socks on over her own worn socks and everything else inside the waistband of her trousers. Nothing went unused in Poland. She didn't know Lily in life. This would be her chance of getting out of Poland to escape the horrors of the war and she was going to take this opportunity. She had lost her family and had no one but herself. She then assumes the identity of Lily.She is determined to survive and she knew she should now flee. She stopped and closed the dead girl's eyes. This she did for the girl whose future she was stealing.

She remembers the name she read in the notebook, Sonya Nemetz and her address in Tel Aviv. Lily goes to Sonya. Sonya hadn't seen her Cousin Lily in a long time, but she knew this was not her Cousin Lily. Sonya wrote her sister, Ida Pearl in Montreal and told her the story. Someone landed on her doorstep and claims to be their Cousin Lily. Only Sonya can't remember Lily looking like that. Sonya feels sorry for her and invites her in her home and confronts the lie, but she doesn't flinch. She sends Lily to Mrs. Zlotnik who can arrange anything she needs eg papers, marriages, jobs and whatever is needed. Lily leaves the diamond with Mrs. Zlotnik to pay for her services. Mrs. Zlotnik was afraid that it was stolen, but she told Lily to leave it for a few days. It took a few months for a marriage to be arranged and it was.Read more ›